The
Bermuda Zoological Society (BZS) is pleased to announce that the 2014
REEF Watch Report is now available to the public, and has also been
officially presented to the Hon. Jean Atherden, JP,
MP, Minister for Health & Environment.

The
report is a culmination of the data collected during REEF Watch 2014,
which was held on Saturday, June 28, and supported by lead sponsor,
Hiscox. During the one-day event, members of the
community were invited to participate in an island-wide effort to
monitor the health of Bermuda's reefs in support of the Bermuda Reef
Ecosystem Analysis and Monitoring (BREAM) programme, led by chief
scientist, Dr. Thaddeus Murdoch.

Not only was
the event a huge success as a fundraiser for continued reef protection
and support of BREAM, it also provided scientists with an amazing amount
of data that would normally take months
to gather - including counting more than 4000 individual fishes
classified into nine main categories based on their important jobs on
the reef.
More than 20 teams participated in the day's events, surveying 40
different patches of reefs located across Bermuda's north lagoon.

The surveys
were conducted utilizing hula-hoops to help measure coral health and the
amount of seaweed and mobile reef inhabitants, like lobsters, found on
the lagoonal reefs.

Dr. Robbie Smith participating in one of the 40 reef surveys that were conducted in June. ~ Photo by N. Pollard

"It
was great to spend time with all the Reef Watch participants and to hear
about their snorkeling experiences during REEF Watch Day 2014," Dr.
Murdoch said. "I am really pleased with the information
they collected. Their efforts confirmed for a second year that our reef
corals and plant-eating fishes remain healthy. Worryingly, our
commercial fish, such as grouper and snapper, were in very low numbers
across most reefs again this year. It is important
that all parts of the reef are healthy if they are to protect us from
big storms like Hurricane Gonzalo, and to continue to provide food for
future generations of Bermudian residents."

Predatory
fish, like groupers and snappers, are important in controlling numbers
of coral-killing damselfish that live on the reef. Parrotfish, doctor
fish, and chubs eat underwater plants that fight
for space with reef corals. Damselfish are native members of the reef
community, but when left unchecked, can cause damage to corals by
growing turf algae gardens on coral skeletons. A healthy reef has lots
of predatory fish and plant-eating (herbivorous)
fish, and few damselfish.

A
healthy Bermuda coral reef, with lots of corals, plant-eating fish and
predatory fish, and not much sea weed, near Chub Beacon, west
of Sandys Parish.

Analysis of the 2014 REEF Watch survey
indicates some good news and some bad news. While herbivorous fish were
highly abundant on more than 50% of the reefs surveyed and only rare on
the inshore reefs, where they do not naturally
live. However, we found that there were too few predators on reefs -
predators were only found to be "abundant" on 10% of reefs, and "highly
abundant" on only 7% of reefs. Conversely, over 80% of reefs were seen
to have very low to no predators.

Probably a
consequence of too few predatory fish being seen on the reefs,
damselfish were seen to be very abundant on more than 50% of reefs, and
abundant on another 30%. Only 17% of the reefs were
seen to have the low numbers of damselfish that are normally expected
to see if fish populations and coral reefs were in a healthy condition.
This pattern of too few predators and too many damselfish was also seen
in 2013.

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